The 272 Fast Food Items Highest In Calories

Despite the many gimmicks, fad diets and seemingly infinite sources of bad information, the single biggest factor in weight control is calories. More specifically, the relationship between how many calories your body burns per day and how many calories you consume (as in eat or drink) per day. What I mean is...

Consuming more calories than you burn = weight gain

Burning more calories than you consume = weight loss

Consuming and burning the same number of calories = weight maintenance

So, if you currently have weight to lose or just want to prevent yourself from ever having weight to lose, the most important and all around useful thing you can do diet-wise is pay attention to your calorie intake.

The thing is, one of the most common food choices for the average person is fast food. That's a fact. And, as if this is going to be a shock to anyone on the planet, fast food is one of the worst high calorie offenders. That's another fact. The combination of these two facts is... well... not-so-good.

Now, while I can't stop fast food restaurants from selling foods that are laughably high in calories, and I certainly can't stop people from eating fast food (it's convenient, cheap and yummy, I know), what I can attempt to do is assist in the making of better choices. Or, in this case, prevent the making of the worst ones.

To do this, I went through the nutrition facts of literally every single item from the menus of 25 popular fast food restaurants (full list of included restaurants can be found at the end of this) to put together a list of what ended up being the 272 Fast Food Items Highest In Calories. Here we go...

NOTE: The above list includes every single fast food item (from the 25 restaurants I looked at) that contained 700 or more calories per serving. I decided on using 700 as the calorie cut off point for this list for a few reasons, the main one being that in my opinion, 700+ calories per ITEM (not per entire meal, but just in one item of that meal) really represents the worst of the worst in terms of calories.

Obviously this doesn't mean that a 699 calorie (or lower) item can't negatively affect your weight, it just means that for the purpose of showing the worst fast food items based solely on calories, I ended it at 700.

Fast Food Restaurant Appearances On This List

Here is the full list of restaurants included in the above list along with the total number of times an item from that restaurant appeared:

White Castle: 36

Sonic: 36

Jack in the Box: 28

Dairy Queen: 27

Hardee's: 24

Carl's Jr.: 22

Burger King: 15

Arby's: 15

McDonald's: 11

Nathans: 12

Del Taco: 10

A&W: 7

Boston Market: 6

Subway: 6

KFC: 3

Wendy's: 3

Taco Bell: 3

Chick-Fil-A: 3

Dunkin Donuts: 3

Pizza Hut: 2

Popeyes: 0

Little Caesars: 0

Papa John's: 0

Domino's Pizza: 0

In-N-Out Burger: 0

The "Real" Top 3 Highest Calorie Items

When putting this whole thing together, I came across 3 specific foods that I ended up omitting from the above list despite them being INSANELY high in calories. My reasoning behind this is that, to the best of my knowledge, these were not normal 1 serving items. I tried to find descriptions or pictures or really any information of any kind about them, but I didn't come up with anything. So, rather than include them on a list they would unfairly be on (if my guess is indeed correct and they are not normal 1 serving items), I decided to leave them off.

The thing is though, these 3 foods would have been numbers 1, 2 and 3 on the list. For that reason, and for the pure hilarity that is their calorie content, here is the "real" top 3: (If you happen to know anything more about any of these foods, please let me know.)

Nathan's Seafood Sampler

Calories: 3378

Arby's Pecan Sticky Bun (4 Pack)

Calories: 2751

Nathan's Shrimp N Chips

Calories: 2051

The FAQ

How many calories should we eat per day?

The answer to this question and most of your other calorie and weight control related questions are already answered in the appropriately named Guide To Calories And Weight Control. Check it out.

You do realize that you can eat a high calorie food at a non-fast food restaurant or even just at home cooking for yourself. Why single out fast food?

Because fast food is the easiest, most convenient and all around most common way the average person eats too many calories. No where else can you get a 3000 calorie meal for under $15 without even getting out of your car. This is just the reality of the typical diet and that's why singling out fast food is not only justified, but it also means a list like this can serve as a useful resource for a larger number of people.

And, not to mention, I don't have the menu or nutrition facts for every single food someone may or may not prepare for themselves at home or order in some restaurant I never heard of. If I did, I'd just as soon put together a similar list.

When was this list put together, and is all the information still current?

This list was compiled in November 2007. While I doubt any of this information will change significantly any time soon (seriously, a 1500 calorie food won't suddenly become a 300 calorie food), there is always a possibility that something might have changed to some degree at some point after this was done. So, to be 100% sure that the nutritional information you see is still current, I'd recommend checking out the web site of each fast food restaurant.

I found this list useful. Do you have any other similar fast food content on this site?